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2009 NPC USA CHAMPIONSHIPS: LITTLE BIG MEN

Flex Staff

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Can someone in the USA‘s four lightest classes go pro?

By Greg Merritt

July 20, 2009

FLEXONLINE.COM

The first two USA Championships were won by middleweights - way back in ’82 and ‘83 - but in the 25 years since, no one lighter than a light-heavy has nabbed a pro card at the USA. For most of those years only the overall champ received pro status, and for the past 11 years it‘s been the champ plus one other class victor. This year things change. With three men‘s pro cards up for grabs (the overall and two other class winners), what are the odds they won‘t go to the three heaviest classes?

Not bad, if we see a middleweight as stellar as last year‘s USA mid winner Nathan Detracy or maybe even a lightweight with the heft of Nationals light champ Marvin Ward. It‘s likely the additional pro card will strengthen the USA‘s under-light-heavy classes, which traditionally have been much stronger at the Nats, where all class winners go pro, but we‘ll have to see if someone south of 176 pounds can muscle pro status from one of the big boys. Four to watch for (all set to be middlemen): Shavis Higa, Scott Turner, Jacob Wilson and the overall winner of the recent L.A. Championships, Daryl Gee.